Summary

This is one of a series of unique prints generated from a site-specific work created in an office block on Blackfriars Road, in the London borough of Southwark. Orbit House was abandoned and scheduled for demolition when Kilpper gained access to the building in 1999. He carved a giant woodcut into the mahogany parquet covering the tenth floor, comprising an area of approximately 400 square metres. The woodcut depicted a boxing ring surrounded by an audience of some eighty characters whose names were cut around the edge of the image. The artist derived the portraits from photographs and etchings which he made into slides and projected onto the floor before carving the relief with chisels and a chainsaw. He then made a succession of prints, constituting individual portraits, on a range of new and found materials. He used old curtains left in the building, often sewing several pieces together to make one large, rectangular support. Paper sources include advertising hoarding paper and sheets of purple UV polythene film which Kilpper discovered screening windows in some rooms of the building. The herringbone texture of the parquet features strongly on all the uncut areas of the prints which were executed mainly in black ink using a specially-made giant, cement-filled roller. During the exhibition of the work, the prints were suspended on washing lines above the carved floor. Daylight from the surrounding windows filtered through their semi-translucent supports. Visitors would walk on the carved parquet while looking at the prints. A huge banner was printed from the entire surface (The Ring, collection the artist) and hung on the outside of the building for the duration of the installation. Tate owns twenty-one prints, twenty made on fabric (Tate P78537-P78556) and one on paper (Tate P78557). The Ring: Fight On (Tate T07671) is a section of the parquet flooring preserved before the building’s demolition in late 2000.

The subjects of the woodcut are characters and events in some way related to the location and to the artist. Kilpper selected Orbit House because of the fascinating history of the building and its site and their connections with his own personal history and motivations. His installation created a web of serendipitous interconnecting personal and political narratives. In 1780, the Wesleyan Surrey Chapel was erected on the site by the charismatic preacher and orator, Reverend Rowland Hill (1744-1833). It served as a chapel until 1890, when the octagonal building was taken over by first an engineering company and then a furniture warehouse. Between 1907 and 1909 it functioned as one of London’s earliest cinemas. In 1910 it became a popular boxing venue, The Ring, until 1940, when it was destroyed by a direct hit in a Luftwaffe raid aimed at the nearby rail link to Dover. During its time as The Ring, the building doubled as a soup kitchen, music hall and theatre, hosting productions of Shakespeare by The Old Vic Company. It was also used by Alfred Hitchcock as the set for his silent movie The Ring in 1926.

This print depicts Bella Burge (1877-1962), wife of Dick Burge (see Tate P78540) and manager of The Ring for twenty-five years after his death. A former music hall performer, she was befriended by the family of music hall ‘queen’ Marie Lloyd (see Tate P78538) and took on the name Lloyd to perform with Marie’s sister Rosie in the 1890s. Money she had made on the stage under the name Bella Lane paid for the fitting out of The Ring in 1910. A strong personality, she was known by many music hall and boxing lovers as ‘Bella of Blackfriars’ and her life story, written by Leslie Bell, was serialised in The Evening News in 1961. To reflect her role of welcoming people to The Ring, Kilpper positioned her at the centre of the entrance to the room in his woodcut. The print support was made from five sections of fabric, including a narrow strip of dark orange which creates a vivid stripe down the left side of Bella Burge’s face.